First of all those jack pads are great for 'jacking' a car up, but I just use a piece of wood the same size as the plastic slot on my jack. Using the jack pads on the stands whilst the car is suspended in the air I'm just not confident with as any form of lateral movement potentially the jack pad could skid off (not likely I know but potentially it could happen)

On a stand like so:

I have no worries getting my low profile jack under the car atm (I only plan to lower 10mm or so) and its no drama to jack the car up as it takes literally 15 seconds per end.

Looking online I think I might go for some of these Torin stands from reverse logic:

The trouble is I reside downunder which makes p&h a killer, so i may source a local supplier of these stands and machine up some blocks at work and drill and mount them (and just because im anal weld them also)

As you said the stands are handy to take the wheels off the car whereas the cradles cannot be used for this purpose (although sometimes the stands can get in your way when working under the car, and the cradles would be great for ease of access)